That's
according to several participants listening to a conference call Monday night
between Steele and the 168-member committee. They spoke on the condition of
anonymity because the call was private.

The
RNC will vote in January on whether to grant Steele a second two-year term or
choose a successor from a multicandidate field.

Steele
has watched his once strong support within the RNC rank and file all but
evaporate during a first term that has been marked by allegations of financial
mismanagement and verbal missteps.

Earlier Monday multiple sources said Steele would announce he would not seek another two years at the RNC's winter meeting next month. Steele has not been making the moves one might expect from someone gearing up for a run: Despite fierce jockeying from others who want his job, he has kept a relatively low profile in recent weeks.

While Steele has been working behind the scenes to judge whether he has the votes for a new term, Politico reports that he "has built no known reelection team or structure" for a bid. He may well have concluded he doesn't have the support he needs to win.

Steele's many gaffes as chairman have certainly caused problems for the RNC. Here's quick summary of headline-making moments from his tenure:

Not long after his election early last year, Steele said he planned an "off the hook" public relations offensive tied to the "hip hop" makeover he planned for the GOP.

In March, he cast Rush Limbaugh as little more than an "incendiary" "entertainer," before backtracking to cast him as a "national conservative leader."

In July, he called the war in Afghanistan a "war of Obama's choosing" despite the fact that began years before President Obama took office. Steele also appeared to oppose a "land war" in Afghanistan.

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The gaffes certainly hurt Steele's standing among Republicans, and by July GOP kingmaker Haley Barbour, a former RNC chairman and current Mississippi governor, was suggestingthe time had come for him to go.

Yet Steele might have weathered all this - along with the perception within the GOP that he was a self-promoter putting his interests ahead of his party's - were the RNC able to keep its fundraising dollars flowing.

That was not the case. The cracks started to show in April, when one of the group's top fundraisers walked away. The move came as outside Republican groups such as American Crossroads were gaining increasingly high profiles - groups that would end up taking in a lot of the GOP donations that could otherwise have gone to the RNC. Former unpaid RNC adviser Alex Castellanos said the same month that Steele has "lost the support of a lot of our major donors."

Last month, Steele got his first challenger in a potential reelection campaign, Former Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis, who stressed he would focus on fundraising and adding, "It is not my goal to be famous."

Four days later, the RNC's political director Gentry Collins, a veteran GOP operative, quit with a letter assailing RNC fundraising under Steele that suggested the group's failings had cost the GOP seats in the midterm elections.

Collins soon jumped into the race to replace Steele; so did Wisconsin GOP Chairman Reince Priebus, perhaps the favorite because he has the support of Henry Barbour, a respected RNC figure who is also Haley Barbour's nephew. Former RNC Co-Chairwoman Ann Wagner is also in the race, as is veteran GOP official and lobbyist Maria Cino, who has the backing of the Bush wing of the party. And a source told Politico's Mike Allen that if Steele does indeed get out of the way, former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman will also throw his hat in the ring.

All that competition, coupled with everything else, would seem to suggest that Steele is on the way out. As his conference call Monday revealed, Steele thinks otherwise.